ok, I still don't get how a line gets cleared if there are 0 blocks in even one of the positions, I know L0 and R0 are the same position.

nevermind, didn't read directions carefully enough - going to try it again

yeah I had an input array that said the right answer was one, yet all positions had at least 2 blocks in them, therefore, 2 lines are cleared, not one I'm pretty sure.

so wait - if this in the input array:
['4L4', '1L3', '1L2', '1L1', '1L0', '1R1', '1R2', '1R3', '1R4', '4L4', '4L4',
'4L4', '4L4', '4L4', '4L4', '4L4', '1L3', '1L2', '1L1', '1L0', '1R1', '1R2', '1R3', '1R4']

how is that only one line cleared? every position has at least 2 blocks in it...

Yeah - I was having a bad night that night - unfortunately as far as I can tell there's no editing or deleting comments once they've been posted...

oh nice, this is exactly what I did - except for the double y line - I'm just beginning to mess with Java - what does the 0.01d part do exactly ? I get why you'd multiply by 0.01 I'm just curious about the 'd' really.

Yeah you are right, that's my bad I apologize. Honestly I was just frustrated because I have a class on SQL coming up so I'm trying to learn it, and I go to do one of these challenges, and find the sql function or w/e that seems like it would do the job, and I plug it in using the same syntax I see on w3schools or wherever I found the info, and the interpreter on here will tell me it doesn't recognize the function or something. That's what I had been doing before this challenge. I wish there was a setting that would not allow me to type anything if my blood pressure rises above a certain level, maybe I should look into that. Clearly there is something I am still doing wrong with the SQL, but it is frustrating. Anyway, just wanted to say that since I'm not able to just delete my comment...

Finally, I actually learned something related to programming from doing one of these challenges. The past 10 or 20 have all just been useless math crap I'll never have to know again unless I decide to do more of these challenges. Thanks to creator of this for actually helping me learn something related to Java.

another dumb challenge where the hard part isn't the coding, it's wasting my time looking up how to get the area of a square from the curved line. god I am so tired of wasting my effing time on this crap.

Yeah I agree. I am on here to learn about the syntax of SQL, not waste time trying to figure out how numbers in a pyramid are related - I'm sure I'll come across situations like that a ton in my SQL class coming up. Too many of these SQL challenges are just bs where the hardest part is deciphering the directions, not actually thinking about SQL.

this ones screwed up

why does semi colon trigger an error? I thought semi colon signified the end of a statement or query or whatever the correct term is ?

wait what ? 2000 isn't the 20th century...